Note 278 — PART II
Reading edition
From the edition of 1809. The poem seems first to have appeared in the National Gazette of January 12, 1792, with the following note: "The following lines were written some years ago (Sept. 1784) on board the brig Dromilly, in Kingston harbour, Jamaica; and sent to the keeper of the King's waterworks, near Rock fort; who had refused the writer a puncheon of water from a reservoir that was, by royal order, appropriated to the use of the royal navy." The present text is somewhat varied from that in the edition of 1795.